there are no stars in tokyo
by hatteringmad
Summary: In which he is quite possibly a genius, and she is simply determined not to be tragic. A story involving cliché, translation, and seeing what is both precious and invisible. CH2: "How was I to know?" he said in English, "Takano-sensei did keep referring to you as a boy." The girl walking beside him shoved her hands deep in her pockets and glowered.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I do not claim any rights to Prince of Tennis, Shattered Fragments, or any characters or plot points referenced from these works.

**Warning: **This work is subject to constant editing/re-writing, so please be sure to mention any discrepancies to me in the reviews box. It also may or may not affect your reading of this story, but I'll try to keep plot changes to a minimum!

**Note:** An enormous HAPPY BIRTHDAY to _Lilting Glamour_, one of my most amazing friends and the author of Shattered Fragments. This work is from the same universe (because I can't write plot and she's nice enough to let me steal), so please check it out! The link is on my profile. Or should be. When I work out how to do it...

* * *

**chapter one**

'Music is well said to be the speech of angels'

Thomas Carlyle, _The Opera_ (1852)

* * *

Fuji Shusuke was a brilliant boy.

In fact, he had been so from a very young age; born with his mother's looks, his father's intellect, and the rare charismatic air that was so often bestowed upon those with the Fuji name. As a child, he was unsurpassed - both in the classroom and out of it - often having to play by himself when his classmates didn't, or couldn't, understand his games. Elsewhere, he was also formidable. His skill at the piano was startling (though perhaps not so exceptional); his ability in sport was called 'natural', and even 'gifted'; and his eye for the aesthetic was second to none - a talent that would develop into a lifelong appreciation for beauty.

And so, by the age of ten, Fuji Shusuke was widely acknowledged to be a prodigy. In fact, by fifteen, his name was almost the _definition_ of genius itself. And, regardless of what the old proverbs said, most agreed that, by the time the boy was twenty, he would go on to change the world.

Of course, our story today does not begin with his greatness. It instead, begins with the one thing Fuji Shusuke possessed - or, perhaps more truthfully, _didn't_ possess - that was undeniably a flaw.

Because Fuji Shusuke, as with most other people, was not perfect.

Despite his mother's looks, and his father's intellect, and the rare charismatic air that was so often bestowed upon those with the Fuji name, and also despite a good amount of effort and almost seventeen years of time to put in this effort, Fuji Shusuke had simply and plainly, never learnt how to understand-

"Fuji-senpai, please go out with me!"

-people, he finished lamely.

Closing his novel, Fuji hastily rearranged his features into a smile.

People. Or, more exactly, relationships with-and-between people.

The girl was standing almost awkwardly close, a quietly expectant look on her face. As he stood to address her properly, he noted that she was a good half-head shorter than him, with dead brown eyes and a gaze so flat it rendered the rest of her face mostly expressionless. A second year, if the blue of her tracksuit was anything to go by. Her short black hair was messy, and the way it stuck out just above her ears reminded him of wings.

"I'm sorry," he said, as calmly as possible, "But I'm not really interested in dating right now."

"Sorry...no?" the girl shot back, almost immediately.

Fuji felt himself tilting off-kilter, and hurriedly righted himself, fixing his smile resolutely in place. So, perhaps he didn't really understand relationships with-and-between people. It didn't mean that he hadn't learnt how to deal with them. The more commonplace ones anyway. The insensitivity of the thought made him wince internally. Nee-chan would have his head if she ever caught him thinking of confessions as 'commonplace'.

Hoping the second-year girl wasn't the sort to run off crying, he nodded as non-gingerly as possible. Some might have called him a sadist, but in all honesty he disliked making people upset.

_Genuinely_ upset, that was. Mostly because he didn't know how exactly it had happened half the time, and because he usually had no idea how to go about fixing it the rest.

(Though a small amount of upset was okay. Small amounts of upset, such as watching other people drink Inui Juice rather than save them from its...tasteful qualities...were okay. Small amounts of upset were good for the soul. And definitely not sadistic at all.)

The girl gave him a short nod, as though she had read his mind.

"Okay," she said.

And then; "Tezuka?"

Fuji felt himself tilting again. He was silent for a moment as his mind recycled through the girl's last words. Firstly - she didn't look upset at all, which was in parts immensely relieving, but also strangely disturbing. He left that for later. Secondly - no asking if there was someone else? No...well, no whatever else there was, actually? He discarded that and considered himself blessed. And, thirdly - Tezuka?

This, he repeated.

"Tezuka?" he said.

The girl gave him a weird look.

"Tezuka," she affirmed, before clearing her throat awkwardly, and somewhat hurriedly tacking on, "Senpai. Tezuka-senpai?"

Fuji frowned, mostly confused and partially amused. The whole 'Tezuka' thing was what confused him. The whole 'Tezuka-without-honorifics' was what amused him. Considering she had just asked him out, he ruled out the chance of her being a Tezuka-fanatic who either called the poor guy 'TEZUKA-SAMA!' or '_Tezuka…_' (yes, Tezuka, his closest friend from middle school years, and captain of the infamous Seigaku Senior High tennis team, really _did_ have fangirls_...fangirls_). But who was this girl, that she could address Tezuka so informally? A long-lost childhood friend, perhaps? A relative? Fuji hoped not - now that would turn out to be awkward.

The girl made a frustrated sort of noise, as though, once again, she could tell what he was thinking, and was trying to get him back on track.

Fuji reinforced his smile and tucked a strand of brown hair behind an ear. Usually he was called out for his uncanny timing and, now that he was on the receiving end, he could admit that it was unsettling.

With a short huff of irritation, the girl curled two fingers around each eye and mimed scanning the room. Then, seemingly not finding what she was looking for, she turned back to him and huffed again.

"Tezuka," she repeated for the third time now.

Fuji nodded somewhat slowly. Was she perhaps...looking for Tezuka?

"Tezuka's in class 3-1," he said, "It's three doors down, first on the left. There'll be a sign just above the door."

The girl blinked owlishly at him.

"3-1?" she echoed.

Fuji found himself observing her more closely as he nodded once again. It was strange, he thought - if she knew Tezuka well enough to call him by name only, then she should have known where to find him. Perhaps she had been given a message to take to him? Fuji's smile was more natural now, as he found himself genuinely curious. There was something off about her behaviour as well. He wasn't brilliant when it came to relationships with-and-between people, but he did understand _people_ themselves to some extent - and his logical reasoning was more than strong enough to tell him that, for a girl who had just been rejected by the guy she confessed to...shouldn't she have been more _upset_?

For all the (genuine) upset she was displaying - if he hadn't known better, he would have thought she had simply asked him for directions.

Though, he thought somewhat ironically, he _was_ technically giving her directions now.

"3-1," the girl said again, more confidently this time, "Thank you."

And then, without further ado, and with a noticeably uncertain duck of the head, she turned her heel and left.

Fuji blinked again, nearing off-kilter but not quite. He watched her retreating form with mild surprise.

It was probably just his overactive imagination, he told himself as he sat back down. The girl was probably just blunt enough that a rejected confession didn't faze her, or perhaps just proud enough to contain any emotion deep inside and keep it from showing on the surface.

But.

He hovered over the trailing 'but'.

Opening his book again, he flicked back to his page. He had almost finished reading _The Little Prince_ for the...forty-second time, was it now? He would have to ask the librarian if they had an English copy sometime soon.

Drumming his fingers absently on his desk, Fuji turned the page. His mind, however, refused to focus on the words, instead wandering back to the hovered 'but' with ridiculous insistence.

_But_, he thought - regardless of what his better sense told him - the second-year girl made him curious.

And, in Fuji Shusuke's dictionary, curious was written just above _interesting_.

:::

One and a half lessons later, on the other side of the school, and faced with a particularly strange maths lecture that made absolutely no sense at all, Angela Tianzi Xia was ready to admit defeat.

There was now something officially wrong with the world, she told herself – and the root of it all was that the language of Australia was _English_.

She tapped her pen against her open textbook. The rhythm was slow and solid, like funeral marches and the sound of August in the wind. At the front of the classroom, the maths teacher was writing a set of formulae on the board. The whiteboard pen squeaked unpleasantly, stubbornly releasing a miserly amount of faded black ink. The teacher turned to face the class, barking out a question in rapid-fire Japanese. A few hands went up and Angela looked back down at her desk.

It wasn't as though there was anything _wrong_ with English, she corrected. She liked English. It wasn't as pretty as, say, French, or as lyrical as Mandarin-Chinese – and it _was_ a lot nicer than Italian or German with their complicated 'rrrrs' and 'ichs' and whatnot. However, there _was_ a problem with the language itself, and that problem was that she had decided to transfer from Australia-of-the-hot-summers-and-the-stinging-salt-waves, all the way to _Japan_.

_Japan_.

And, in _Japan_, people didn't speak English – they spoke _Japanese_.

Call it a no-brainer, or call her severely lacking in The Department of Common Sense (as her kid-cousin back in China so often did) – nevertheless, it was a big problem for her.

Now, sure, she was a little impulsive (okay, maybe a _lot_ impulsive), and sure, the decision to move to another country entirely hadn't been very well thought through (okay, maybe it hadn't been thought through _at all_)…

Angela dropped her pen with a resigned _clack_.

Okay, so she had no excuses whatsoever, and little in the way of The Department of Common Sense, _and_, as added baggage from whoever ran the universal 'pick-an-unfortunate-soul' organisation, it _showed_ in the fact that she couldn't speak, read _or_ write Japanese.

Actually it more than showed, given the fact that the _entirety of her Japanese vocabulary_ consisted of what little she had managed to pick up from otaku-friends back home and their freaking _anime shows_.

Which basically translated, happily enough for her, into stone cold _nothing_.

Honorifics, basic formalities, the odd phrase or two here and there?

She could do.

Everything else? Angela picked up her pen again and twirled it irritably around her fingers.

It was rhetorical.

_Three weeks_, she thought. It had been three weeks since she had arrived in Japan. Two weeks, since she had found a job, delivering newspapers at a ridiculous time in the morning. Which made it almost a week, now, since she had started school at Seigaku Senior High.

And, in all that time, all she had managed to learn was that the headmaster's wig had an unfortunate aptitude for flight (why even bother with the wig anyway?), the whole school seemed to have a strange fixation with the boys' tennis team (it was like rowing in Australia or something), that she was _severely allergic_ to sailor-girl uniforms in various shades of _watermelon_ (who on _Earth_ had thought it would be a good idea to make a girls' uniform in the colours of _watermelon_? _watermelon_, seriously), and that, for some reason, all her teachers kept calling her…Kasumi?

She resumed her tapping, now at a noticeable faster rate.

_Three weeks_. And she had not come any closer to being able to understand Japanese, the accursed language.

In her mind, she made a list that went somewhat like this:

The Problem – Angela lives in Japan and can't understand Japanese. Oh no!

The Solution – Angela needs to learn Japanese. Preferably very quickly, oh yes.

The Secondary Problem – Angela has proved herself rubbish at trying to learn Japanese on her own. Very rubbish indeed. Requiring another oh no!

So, ta da! The Plan – Angela finds a tutor and lives Happily Ever After. Hooray!

Cue cheering, sparkles and raucous applause. If possible, with the addition of a rainbow and several pots of gold. $9.99, limited time offer only! Order soon, before stocks run out!

Angela snorted, trying to keep the smile from creeping onto her face.

With the exception of all the ridiculous fanfare at the end, a tutor _would_ fix everything. She wouldn't even have to _learn_ Japanese so long as they could translate everything for her. Lazy, but it wasn't as though she would be staying in Japan for the rest of her life.

And there had to be _someone_ in Japan who could speak fluent English, though simply coherent English would do. Someone who also (preferably) wouldn't charge her for their services, and was easily accessible during school hours, which was when she needed a translator – _tutor_, she reminded herself; when she needed a _tutor_ the most.

It had been fool-proof, really. Logic – or was it optimism? – also stated that at least _one_ of these someones would eventually agree to tutor her.

And so, armed with The Plan, she had set off.

Now, sitting somewhat dejectedly in the middle of second-period maths, she still didn't know what had gone wrong.

Before school that morning, she had asked some of the girls in her class who the best English speakers were – a process which, as with most things since she had arrived in Japan, had turned into an excruciatingly slow game of charades. Honestly, with the amount of arm-waving and miming she had been put through these last three weeks, she deserved a diploma in acting and a place in a circus or something. Angela frowned, her mouth twitching up in a sardonic smile. Added to the fact that the two girls had spent most of their time giggling and…blushing?

Nevertheless.

Eventually she had managed to work out three names and a vague idea of where to start:

_Tezuka Kunimistu, third year, ranked first in English_

_Fuji Shusuke, third year, ranked second in English_

_Igarashi Sora, third year, ranked third in English_

None were names that she recognised, but, considering the fact that she didn't even know the names of most of her _teachers_ (though, in her defence, they could never seem to get _her_ name right either)…

Looking back on it, Angela also remembered that there had been mention of an…echidna? Echiz-something? Perhaps they had wanted to ask if Australian kids rode kangaroos to school. She shook her head at the thought of it. In all her life, she had never seen _anyone_ ride a kangaroo – even _her_ apparent lack of common sense told her it was illogical. How people managed to come up with such ridiculous notions, she had no idea. And she wasn't even going to _start_ on drop bears*.

_Drop bears_.

If there was an award for the most ridiculous creature imaginable, it would have won first, second _and_ third place.

With contained amusement, Angela glanced up at the clock. 10:14. The lesson was almost over. She picked a piece of lint off her tracksuit jacket.

After the initial hand waving, she mused, it had only been a matter of working out what to say – _tsukiatte kudasai_* apparently; the girls had been strangely insistent on it – and tracking down the three students on her list – which the girls had also helped with, practically dragging her to the doorway of classroom 3-6, before disappearing in one last fit of giggles.

"Kasumi-kun?"

Even now, she still didn't get what had been so funny. Maybe there had been something on her face? She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Nothing.

It must have been _something_, though, she thought. The three third-years she had approached had also behaved strangely as well, to say the least. Or, not so much them themselves, but _definitely _the other people who had been there at the time.

For example, the first boy.

Actually, Angela thought, the first boy had been pretty normal. Declined politely, rather pleasant…although he _had smiled_ an awful lot. The smiling had been strange enough, though it wasn't as strange as the glasses guy.

He was like a rock, she remembered. Stone statue still, didn't move much, declined with a one word apology. And _she_ had been called expressionless before. There had also been an egg-head guy with him at the time – now _he_ had been _really_ weird. _Bright red_ and _choking on air_, the guy had practically _run into the door frame_ as he tried to escape. And from what? Angela knew she wasn't exactly the prettiest thing alive, and sure she _was_ kind of messy…but she didn't look so terrifying as to induce such…terror, really.

Maybe he was scared of girls? At the time, she had written it off as a special-case thing, and had made note to tread carefully where egg-heads were concerned – only to find that the blonde girl was noticeably strange as well. What was so startling about being asked for a tutor, that you would drop all your books and have your friend laugh and whistle as though someone had just asked you out or something?

Really, she thought. It was _strange_.

"Kasumi-kun?"

Though maybe it was just a cultural thing? Without noticing, she had moved from tapping her pen against her desk to twirling it between her fingers. A lone bird whistled outside. It was a lonely sort of tune; off-key and repetitive. The air conditioner continued to hum. Cars honked in the distance. Somewhere across the ocean her kid-cousin would have just woken up. The world rotated on its axis. Life continued on as it had always d–

Angela blinked.

She shouldn't have been able to _hear a lone bird whistling outside_.

_Oh but she could_.

Which meant that the classroom had gone _abnormally quiet_…hadn't it?

Glancing up to the front of the room, she–

"_Kasumi Tenji-kun!_"

Angela started. The maths teacher was standing right beside her desk, frowning down at her with barely concealed irritation. She heard laughter erupting around the room, before it was quickly muffled.

Kasumi Tenji. Right – the weird new name all the teachers kept calling her.

"Ah…sorry?" she said.

The teacher's frown merely deepened. He gave her a long, disapproving look, before rattling off what seemed to be a question.

Angela blinked, digging around for a possible meaning/answer, sneaking a glance at the board as though it would magically offer up a clue. Nada.

And this was why she needed a Japanese tutor.

"Sorry," she said again, giving the teacher a helpless shrug.

Inside, her mind whirred. What had he asked her? Was it on the board? She couldn't remember the teacher's name. What _was_ his name? Taka…Tama…Tamaki? Takami? _Tanaki? Tanuki?!_

"Really sorry, Tanuki-sensei," she added for brownie points.

However, rather than pacifying him, the newly identified Tanuki-sensei's frown only grew deeper. Another burst of laughter followed her words; one boy actually snorted out loud. Vaguely, Angela wondered if that was a vein she could see throbbing on the teacher's temple. It was an anime thing, she remembered – but anime had to be based off _something_, right?

Coughing sternly, Tanuki-sensei now said something else, possibly involving another teacher called Takano? Was he giving her a _detention_? It was her turn to frown now, as she tried to make sense of the words. She really, _really_ needed to find a Japanese tutor. And soon.

Really, _really_ soon.

And then, just as she was beginning to wonder if she should apologise again – the girl sitting next to her raised a hand.

"_Sensei_," she drawled, cutting Tanuki-sensei off mid-sentence.

Almost instantly, every eye in the class was on her. A long silence followed.

Angela turned to look at the girl in surprise. She had never really paid attention to the people in her class, but, now that she _was_ looking, she didn't know how exactly she _hadn't_ noticed this particular girl.

The girl had choppy red hair, streaked with black, which covered half of her face. The edge of a tattoo curled out from under her collar and three piercings glinted in her right ear. Her eyes were a fierce gold – the girl had a dangerous sort of look and, combined with the way that the class seemed to be holding their breath in anticipation, Angela supposed that she must have been some kind of infamous figure.

Tanuki-sensei's frown, at this point, threatened to overtake his whole face. His mouth was drawn in a ruler straight line.

"What is it, Kurenai-san?" he said shortly.

The girl – Kurenai-san – gave him a bored look. What she said next, Angela didn't quite understand (as usual), but she _did_ catch the word…Australia?

Was Kurenai-san…explaining her situation to the teacher?

Well, whatever she had said, Tanuki-sensei swung round to give her an utterly incredulous look. Then, turning back to the girl, he said something else in Japanese, as though he couldn't quite believe himself, before frog-marching back to the front of the room. The class seemed to let out a disappointed sigh, which soon turned into a hushed chatter.

Angela watched it all in absolute confusion. She gave her seatmate a questioning glance.

"Sorry," she said, "But, um…what?"

The girl gave her a long hard stare. Angela returned it evenly and didn't look away. After a long moment, she seemed to nod curtly in approval.

"_Teacher says see after class_," she said.

Her English was crooked and distinctly accented, but Angela managed to catch the words.

"Right," she said, sticking to Japanese, "Thanks."

At her polite nod, Kurenai-san merely shrugged, a drawn-out lazy movement, and turned away. Angela looked back up at the front of the classroom, where Tanuki-sensei had resumed his scribbling on the board. She likened him to a great alien frog, slurping up correct answers like formulaic flies.

10:26. Four more minutes until the lesson ended.

She closed her unread textbook with a quiet _flap_. What _did_ Tanuki-sensei want to speak with her about, she wondered. Well. It wasn't as though she would understand him anyway.

Angela dropped her pen into her pencil case and zipped it closed. She resumed her tapping with her fingers instead, idly watching the clock tick by.

Two minutes turned into one minute.

One minute turned into thirty seconds.

Twenty seconds. Ten seconds.

Seven seconds; five seconds; three...two…one…

Zero.

Silence reigned for half a heartbeat, as the rest of the class hurried to pack their things away.

And then, the recess bell rang.

:::

Ten minutes later, Angela found herself in the teachers' staffroom, being introduced to some pretty boy who had a smile like painted plastic.

"Pleased to meet you, Kasumi-kun," the boy said, bowing.

She gave him a vaguely uncertain look in return. Fluttery brown hair and crinkled crescent eyes; he was almost girlish-looking. And also familiar, she thought. Had she perhaps seen him somewhere before? Spoken to him?

Was he actually in her _class_?

Observing him more carefully (lest she have another 'whoops I sit right next to you but I totally don't remember you at all' moment), she suddenly noticed that, in all the time since Tanuki-sensei had first introduced them to each other, the boy _hadn't stopped smiling once_.

He _hadn't stopped smiling_.

_Declined politely, rather pleasant…although he had _smiled_ an awful lot._

Angela blinked. That was it.

_Third year, ranked second in English_.

"My name is Fuji Shusuke," the boy said.

* * *

**Note:** Once again, a huge thanks to _Lilting Glamour_! If you have any questions, comments or concrete, please leave a review and I will try to get back to you.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!

1)_ tsukiatte kudasai_ - 'please go out with me' (Poor Angela, oh the havoc you have wreaked)

2) _drop bears_ - Anyone from home (actually, just about anyone from anywhere, really), check out this link; australianmuseum. net. au/drop-bear


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I do not claim any rights to Prince of Tennis, Shattered Fragments, or any characters or plot points referenced from these works.

**Warning: **This work is subject to constant editing/re-writing, so please be sure to mention any discrepancies to me in the reviews box. It also may or may not affect your reading of this story, but I'll try to keep plot changes to a minimum!

**Note:** Thank you to everyone who reviewed my first chapter; it really means a lot to me! And to everyone who didn't...it's never too late to start!

This is me shamelessly campaigning for as much concrete (concrit - constructive criticism) as I can get. Humour me.

* * *

**chapter two**

'You do not know the first note of the music that moves me'

Patrick Rothfuss, _The Name of the Wind_ (2007)

* * *

For Fuji, Thursdays were normally associated with vinegar.

There was something criminal, he thought, in having a day where tennis practise started an hour earlier than normal in the morning, after which he was subjected to double science (both his worst _and _least favourite subject), followed by Japanese history and Japanese literature (which always passed astronomically slowly, despite the interesting course material), and then long homeroom (the purpose of which made little to no sense to him). This was all finished off by tennis practise (again), and then grocery shopping for the next week, before he could go home and do his _homework_.

However, Fuji thought, this _particular_ Thursday had turned out to be rather interesting – indeed, it had found him quite the cheerful soul as he walked down to the library.

"_How was I to know?_" he asked in English, "_Takano-sensei did keep referring to you as a boy_."

The girl walking beside him shoved her hands deep in her pockets and glowered. Her short messy hair stuck out just above her ears and, at his words, her eyes narrowed. Overall, she had the general impression of a recently awoken _yoko_*. It was a pleasant look, he thought.

"_He must be blinder than KC_," the girl said shortly.

And then; "_Wait…_" she said, looking up at him with a frown, "_Who the hell is Takano-sensei?_"

Fuji merely gave her a pleasant smile.

During recess break, he had been called to the teachers' staffroom where the second year maths teacher – Takano-sensei if his memory had served him right – had introduced him to a certain Kasumi Tenji. Apparently, the boy had recently moved from Australia to Japan and had only begun attendance at Seigaku that Tuesday. Takano-sensei had then gone on the explain that the boy's English was also apparently 'very poor to non-existent' and had finished off by asking if Fuji would be able to tutor him in Japanese, _thank you very much it would be of a great help your student guidance teacher has already been spoken to and is happy for you to do so_ and etc.

Well, of course, being the helpful _tensai_ that he was, Fuji had agreed to it.

But what had really been of interest to him was that, Kasumi Tenji had been the _very same girl who had confessed to him that morning_…and was now (according to Takano-sensei, anyway)…

A boy?

Like any normal inquisitive mind in his position, he had been more than puzzled at the time. And, unable to make any confirmations in such a situation, he had simply observed both Takano-sensei and Kasumi Tenji all the more closely, trying to ascertain whether or not the teacher truly believed what he was saying, and whether or not the 'boy' was absolutely-definitely the second year girl from that morning.

On both accounts, the answer had been 'yes'.

Which had done absolutely-definitely nothing for his questions.

Now, usually, the idea that he, Fuji Shusuke resident _tensai_, would have mistaken a boy for a girl would have never crossed his mind. Not because he was conceited or full of himself – it was just that a lifetime of experience had proved he was _right_ about ninety nine per cent of things, ninety nine per cent of the time. And, regardless of any cross-dressing ideas that were held in otaku pop culture, a boy being mistaken for a girl (and vice versa) was _not_ something that happened on a regular basis.

However, that was _usually_.

The only reason why _usually_ had failed to make an appearance during that meeting was largely due to the fact that, only last Thursday during his usual round of grocery shopping, a well-meaning old lady at the corner store had called him such a _nice pretty girl_…and _that_ had rattled him more than he liked to admit. _Usually_ such things did _not_ happen to him, and he was able to ignore the fact that _yes_ he did look more effeminate than most boys his age, and _yes_ his voice was a _bit higher_ than most boys his age, and _yes_ at the age of seventeen (or four years and a quarter if you were– okay you get the idea) _sometimes people did call him a girl, or girlish, when he was so clearly a guy that it wasn't funny_.

Nevertheless. Ignoring that. Moving on from there.

As such, with this abnormal disappearance of the usual, Fuji had found the need to ascertain whether or not he had been mistaken (always learn from your mistakes and all) and, alas, there had been no better way than that of direct enquiry (yes there were student records, but he hadn't had the _time_ the hack into those).

And, as such (as with all direct enquiries), it had led him to this pleasantly amusing conversation.

"_Takano-sensei_," Fuji said, still smiling, "_He was that teacher from before – isn't he your maths teacher?_"

Kasumi Tenji's eyes widened almost comically. The tips of her ears turned red.

"_Ah_," she said awkwardly, looking intently at the ground and muttering something he couldn't quite make out – _so that's why…?_

Fuji's smile grew wider. The girl – who had confirmed she was indeed a girl with a rather confused expression – had what he recognised to be impeccable English. The way she spoke wasn't quite what he was used to, but he attributed the arched vowels and clipped consonants to the difference between accents. Her English had a fluidity, he thought, that only native-speakers seemed possess.

"_I beg your pardon?_" he said in return, wondering what his English sounded like to her.

Kasumi-san looked back up at him again. For the briefest moment, she gave him a strange look, one that he recognised from earlier that day. A short silence seemed to stretch between them, before she said;

"_Fuji. Your name is Fuji, right?_"

He nodded in affirmative, wondering if she had noticed the sudden drop of honorifics, and what exactly she was getting at.

Kasumi-san frowned now, a quizzical sort of look, and then slowly said, "_My name isn't Kasumi Tenji. So why does everyone keep calling me that?_"

Fuji blinked in surprise. One, two. They turned around a corner.

"_…how is your name written?_" he asked.

The girl – being 'the girl' once more, now that she was no longer 'Kasumi Tenji' – pulled out a pen and a crumpled looking piece of paper from her pockets. In several deliberate strokes, she drew three bold characters and handed it to him.

"_Xia Tian Zi_," she read.

Fuji examined the characters carefully, inwardly wincing at the downright atrocious state of her handwriting. Ah. So that was it.

She had used Chinese characters – presumably a Chinese name? – rather than converting an English name based on phonetics. Clever, he thought. But ultimately confusing. A quick comparison told him that the character he read to be 'kasumi' was most likely the Chinese character for 'xia'; likewise for 'ten' and 'tian'. The character she had called 'zi' wasn't one that he had seen before…maybe it was unique to Chinese, or one of those rare antiquated ones that no one used anymore? Either way, it was also easily explained – the 'zi' sound had probably been mispronounced as 'ji' by one of the admins, and the mistake had simply been carried down the line.

Turning around one last corner, the two arrived at the library. Fuji pulled the door open and walked over to the study area, dropping his bag on an empty table. He pulled out a Japanese-English pocket dictionary.

"_Let's sit here_," Fuji said, sliding the dictionary over to the girl, "_You can borrow this. Don't use and online translator; you will just forget everything._"

She took it and idly flicked through the pages.

"_And how does this explain the Kasumi Tenji thing?_"

"_Try looking up 'kasumi'_," Fuji said, "_And also, since your name isn't Kasumi Tenji; what would you like me to call you_?"

Not-Kasumi-Tenji/Xia-Tian-Zi didn't look up as she searched for the word.

"_Angela_," she said, almost absentmindedly, and then; "_Wait, Japanese. Right…Japanese name…how the hell do you use this thing?_"

Fuji watched her bemusedly as she frowned, turning the pages back and forth.

"_Is Angela your English name?_" he asked.

She nodded, running a finger down the line of words. _Angela_, Fuji thought. He smiled.

"_Tenshi-chan, then_," he said, at the same time the girl looked up and announced, "_It's the same character. For all of them. Why did I not think of that?_"

Which was shortly followed by an abrupt; "_Don't call me 'chan'_."

Fuji's smile grew wider.

"_What's wrong with it?_" he asked pleasantly.

She gave him a long-suffering look this time, her dead brown eyes flatter than deadpan.

"_It's creepy_," she said.

Fuji chuckled in good will.

"_Tenshi-kun then_," he corrected.

The newly named Tenshi-kun merely sighed and opened the dictionary again.

"_Haha_," she said as she found the word, "_Very funny_*."

* * *

**Note:** Nothing much to say. As usual, if you have any questions comments or concrete, please leave a review and I'll try to get back to you! Thanks for reading!

1) _yoko_ - A Japanese demox fox (just imagine a grumpy looking kid with fox ears, long hair and a bushy tail)

2) _Very funny_ - 'tenshi' means 'angel' in Japanese


	3. Author's Note

Hi there everyone!

I'd just like to say that **tansit** is definitely on HIATUS now, and I'm really sorry for taking so long to tell you guys!

I don't really know when I'll be back to finish this, but hopefully sometime in the next month once school/exams are both over and done with.

Thank you all so much for your follows/faves/reviews. They may not seem like much, but they're a huge support.

Over and out - hatteringmad (or aehlta)


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